Lessons Learned from Recent Ryder Cups

How have American and European teams stacked up against one another in recent Ryder Cups? And where does the 2025 edition of the competition fit into the arc of recent Ryder Cup history? 

With the benefit of hindsight and lessons learned at each of the three Ryder Cups contested since 2018, let’s take a journey through what has gone right and wrong for each team and consider their skill profiles in the run-up to Bethpage Black. 

2018 Ryder Cup

Le Golf National | Paris, France

The 2018 Ryder Cup was a seminal moment in golf history. The tournament arrived at the intersection of a data analytics revolution, perceived American dominance, and real American decision-making incompetence. The Ryder Cup at Le Golf National is worth revisiting, not just to reflect upon the disparity in captaincy acumen between the two sides but also to highlight how the collective skill sets of each team have changed between then and now. 

Entering the week, Team USA was priced as a clear favorite, touting 12 of the top-25 players in the Official World Golf Ranking compared to Team Europe’s eight.  The American side also had three of the top four players in the OWGR and three of the four reigning major winners. American victory was not a foregone conclusion, but markets gave the American side a 55-60% chance of winning. 

An American victory it was not. After a successful 3-1 Friday fourball morning session, the Americans were boatraced 4-0 in the afternoon, and Team Europe never looked back. The Euros entered the Sunday singles matches with a 10-6 lead, only to extend it to  a comfortable 17.5-10.5 victory, which, at the time, was the largest margin of victory at a Ryder Cup since 2006.  

What’s the official diagnosis of what transpired in Paris? Why did Team USA get decimated despite having a more talented roster, at least on paper? A few things happened. 

First and foremost, the members of Team USA played poorly. As tempting as it may be to place blame on the captains’ shoulders, the shots players hit and the putts they roll are still the most important determining factors. The Americans missed fairways by miles with irons off the tee (*cough* Tiger *cough* Phil). Also, the combination of jet lag and fatigue from a quick turnaround between East Lake and Le Golf National seemed to have a negative impact on players, especially Tiger Woods, who was fresh off his first win in five years. Locker room chemistry wasn’t exactly harmonious either, with reported in-fighting between Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka and a disgruntled Patrick Reed phoning a New York Times reporter after the event to voice frustration with pairings decisions made by captain Jim Furyk. Toss in a few questionable pairings decisions, like trotting out a wildly inaccurate Phil Mickelson in foursomes, and the Americans concocted a recipe for disaster. 

The other crucial piece, however, was the way the Europeans set up the golf course to reward accuracy. Team Europe’s roster featured more straight hitters than the longer-hitting American side, and the Europeans leveraged that information. 

Of the 22 players with enough data to qualify to be listed on the PGA Tour site, the American team had five of the six longest hitters in the competition, none of whom were highly accurate, while the European side boasted six of the seven most accurate players.

Accordingly, the Europeans made a conscious effort to set up the course such that wayward misses were penalized, employing graduated rough and locating spectators far from the fairways to ensure that errancy found thick native grasses, not trampled down spectator areas. 

Naturally, the strategy worked. Europe dominated the event, and the Americans tucked their tails between their legs and headed back home searching for answers.

Team chemistry? Poor. Understanding of course setup and course fit? Nonexistent. Intelligent pairings? Never heard of ‘em. Appropriate travel arrangements to best prepare for an international competition? Absolutely not. The Americans didn’t bring a solid game plan to Paris. And it showed. 

Every decision made at a Ryder Cup is a reaction to lessons learned from previous Ryder Cups. Nowhere was it made more clear than in Paris that the American side had lessons to learn. 

2021 Ryder Cup

Whistling Straits | Kohler, Wisconsin  

The story of the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits is much simpler than the previous edition. The Americans entered the competition as heavy favorites to win, priced around a 65-70% chance to win back the cup in the betting markets. Team USA had a significant talent advantage over Team Europe, on a golf course well-suited to the Americans’ skill sets, this time with a competent captain in Steve Stricker at the helm. At major championships in 2021, the American team secured one win, 19 top 10s, and 26 top 20s across 48 collective starts. The Europeans had one win, eight top 10s, and 14 top 20s across their 48 starts. 

From a distance perspective, Americans had six of the eight longest hitting players in the event at the beefy, distance-friendly Whistling Straits. On the other hand, the Europeans had five of the six shortest hitters.

Stricker paired American players with complementary skill sets, for instance, leaning heavily on a Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa duo that went 3-0, including two victories in foursomes. The better team won, and they won in a landslide: 19-9. You could nitpick the decision-making and performance of the European side, but the reality is that the Euros were outmatched on foreign soil, playing on a golf course that favored the American side.  

Whistling Straits effectively played out like it theoretically should have, inviting questions about whether or not Team Europe could close the talent gap in the near future with so many of the top players in the world wearing Red, White, and Blue. 

2023 Ryder Cup

Marco Simone | Rome, Italy 

The 2023 Ryder Cup lives somewhere in between the 2018 and the 2021 versions of the competition. Leading up to the event, the markets priced the outcome as nearly a coin flip. The golf course was set up much more neutrally than Le Golf National or Whistling Straits, and the skill sets between teams were much closer than in years past. Team Europe had narrowed the talent gap much more than many could have expected in the aftermath of Whistling Straits.  

Neither team had a sizable advantage in terms of either distance or accuracy, nor did the golf course offer an extreme test of either skill. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but bad preparation and execution once again plagued the American side, as well as truly awful decision-making from an overwhelmed captain in Zach Johnson. From questionable captain’s picks that furthered the Boys’ Club narrative to total incoherence when describing the strategic element of the Ryder Cup, it was immediately evident that ZJ had bitten off more than he could chew. 

In the lead-up to Rome, most American players had zero competitive reps in more than a month dating back to the Tour Championship. “I would never prepare for a big event where I had five weeks off between one tournament to the next,” team member Wyndham Clark later said while reflecting on the team’s approach to preparing for Rome. 

Moreover, the squad arrived in Rome on Monday, giving players little time to acclimate to an international time zone. The result? A bloodbath. Before the Americans had realized what hit them, Europe led 6.5-1.5 after the opening day, marking the first time in Ryder Cup history the Americans failed to win a single match in a day.

From then onward, the Americans never stood a chance of getting back in the fight. Saturday morning delivered more humiliation, as the Europeans won three of the four foursomes matches, including a Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland 9-and-7 routing of Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka. Ultimately, the European side outscored the Americans 16.5-11.5, a fifth straight decisive victory for the home team. 

2025 Ryder Cup

Bethpage Black | Farmingdale, New York

With just days until the opening tee shot at Bethpage Black, where does this year’s edition fit into the narrative of recent Ryder Cup history? From a talent and skill profile perspective, how does each team stack up? And to what extent does Bethpage favor one side or the other? Team USA once again enters the event as a favorite, priced in betting markets with an implied chance of 55-60% to steal back the Cup. 

In major championships in 2025, the American side collectively racked up three wins, 18 top 10s, and 22 top 20s in 47 starts. By comparison, the Euros collectively earned one major win, 12 top 10s, and 19 top 20s. Team USA rates out slightly stronger on paper, albeit not by nearly as much as in past years, at least by most conventional metrics. It doesn’t hurt to have the most dominant player in the world in your stable. 

Turning an eye to course fit, Bethpage Black, a par 70 measuring 7,352 yards, is historically a golf course highly correlated with distance off the tee. 

Team USA has slightly more speed, especially once you factor in Bryson DeChambeau, one of the three LIV golfers absent from the table above who wields as much power as any golfer on the planet. Team Europe still has ample speed on its side, but the bottom half of its roster will be sacrificing some distance to opponents. 

From a preparation standpoint, each side enters the event with thoughtfully curated plans to promote team unity and get in competitive reps. By the time the first tee shot is hit, Team Europe will have spent nearly two weeks together on Long Island, familiarizing themselves with the golf course and spending time with one another while their bodies adjust to the time zone. Eleven of the 12 European team members competed in the BMW PGA Championship that wrapped up a week ago, so rust should not inhibit the Euros. 

On the American side, 10 of the 12 American team members teed it up at the Procore Championship that coincided with the BMW PGA. Bryson DeChambeau and Xander Schauffele were the two nonparticipants, as DeChambeau’s LIV affiliation renders him ineligible for PGA Tour events and Schauffele celebrated the birth of his first child. The team stayed together in Napa, hoping to foster team chemistry in a similar fashion to the Euros. 

If the American side lays an egg at Bethpage, poor preparation should not be an excuse this time around. Nor should substandard captain’s picks be scapegoated, as captain Keegan Bradley wisely opted for in-form golfers over members of the Boys’ Club or, potentially controversially, himself. 

The Americans maintain home course advantage – a difficult-to-quantify though significant advantage – while Bradley’s understanding of strategy and optimal pairings remains to be seen. Team Europe continues to have a strong handle on that front. 

In a short time, we’ve come a long way from the days of 2018, back when Team Europe hit the ball short and straight and the Americans bombed it past them. Even as recently as 2021, it was reasonable to imagine that the American side would have a distance advantage over Europe for the foreseeable future. Instead, the rosters have much more competitive balance than many historical Ryder Cups.

We’re set up for what should be the most competitive Ryder Cup in a decade, one in which the action itself takes center stage, with locker room dysfunction and poor preparation seemingly in the rearview mirror for both sides.